Brewery Progress Update, November 2014

Wow, what a month it’s been, Ghostfish fans! Three HUGE events took place:

1. Our first public tasting at Seattle Cider Company was a roaring success! We shared four beer styles: our three flagships (pale ale, witbier, and stout) and a bonus experimental porter, and kicked all four of our kegs in the first hour! We got a lot of good feedback and positive comments, especially from non-gluten-free craft beer drinkers, and raised $5000 for our Kickstarter. Check out the photos here. We really can’t say enough nice things about the people at Seattle Cider: they let us use their tasting room on a night when they are normally closed, helped us serve the beer and manage the attendees, cleaned up at the end of the night, and did it all with beaming smiles. We can’t wait to return the favor!

2. We reached our Kickstarter goal of $30,000, and then shot past it by another $1,486! AMAZING! It was a hair-raising and nerve-wracking month of campaigning, but you all showed us that you believe in what we’re doing and want to help us achieve our vision. Words cannot express how amazing it feels to have this kind of support from the community. Now we can afford to build out a pilot system and brew lab to develop new recipes and brew a huge portfolio of taproom-exclusive beers, and sharing them with you all will be the REAL reward!

3. Our 15bbl brewhouse has ARRIVED and is being installed as I type this! This is the heart of our brewery, the equipment that allows us to actually brew the beer, and is the final piece of the puzzle. At this point it is literally just a matter of fitting everything together and putting the finishing details on our taproom…and of course, receiving our licenses. We are still optimistic that we can have our Federal license before the year’s end, and there’s a good chance that we’ll be ready to brew our first saleable batch as soon as we get our license. We are getting so close, people!